Because it harms the clubs they play against to have to call off games due to players having another priority, backing up on the same weekend is not exactly ideal and overplaying players sees more burn out etc. Ultimately that's their choice but doesn't stop the game having a responsibility.



As for BARLA banning RLC players, it actually makes sense for them as they don't want clubs scratching at the end of the season, and they have to run competitions

Surely that is the whole point I'm making that if you have winter players there will be problems during the overlap. Maybe if that's the case they should shorten the season and look at ideally getting teams into the Northern Rail Cup, but if as is likely that's not possible then they could look at a Northern Rail Trophy type tournament with a group of maybe 4 teams playing home and away before the season with a final later as the curtain raiser to the NRC or something.



Also when the RLCP South gets to a standard to be the RLCN (South), which will happen eventually as it's already closer to RLCN standard than it is to RLCP standard (Bedford would have a good chance of winning the RLCP Midlands this year but got hit for 100 by South London, Nottingham won the RLCP midlands last year and instantly are near the top of RLCN), a competition like this would allow Hemel to retain fixtures against all the big northern sides, while replacing ones against East Lancashire etc with higher or equivalent standard local ones.

or shorten the winter season...

Why should they? Their clubs manage with a longer season fine and they're the only one to allow players a full season. Of course I'd rather this winter season be under the RFL than BARLA, but they shouldn't have to take games off everyone for the minority that want to play summer as well



The RLC National is the one that brought this situation on itself by coming up with the ludicrous idea of a 5 month season, which is about the worst idea you could have. A 7-8 month season is long enough that players will play just for you and not need two clubs and a 3-4 month season is short enough that winter players can play both for you and their winter club without the two interfering. A 5 month season and you have players playing two overlapping seasons and you end up with the utter joke that was the first three weeks of the RLCN this season.



Of course I'd like to see a RLCN (or better still Championship 2) with a full season, but half the current clubs probably wouldn't be able to cope, so may be difficult, although for some clubs the longer season would make it more appealing for players to commit just to that club.

what? by having season that allows us to play out grand final with the championship cubs?



we had a full season. the rfl took that away from us by fooking about with the challenge cup. and not allowing us to play in the nrc.

It shows how far our sport has come in the professional era when we all appear to have great confidence in the way our sport is administered at the highest level. Yes it's not perfect but there is some great work being done that gets buried by the usual terrorists.

I don't have great confidence in the way the sport is administered, it's a mixed bag. There are positive steps forward but then these are marred by amateurish behaviour. BARLA is the architect of its own downfall because of its insular and self-interested attitude, if it had genuinely been interested in widespread amateur development at all levels and in all areas it would have been better for the whole of rugby league.

In fifteen years of dealing with Barla and enduring far too many tedious meetings I'm struggling to think of any case where Barla blazers actually made a decision that would encourage or enable anyone to play the game. Practically every situation I can recall has been about stopping players/clubs playing and restricting players freedom of choice.



I've also found that many of the officials are committee men/women who have a love for their organisation and its political struggles. Some have very (and too obvious) biases to their own club/town/league or their own Barla "careers". Most have never played and I've not met one who appears to have a genuine enthusiasm for and love of the game.



Barla was needed...but the situation is "evolve or die" and they keep looking backwards.

Actually sorry I'll give you that the RFL caused the problem by poor planning of the league, just it was clear the season started 3 weeks early for some clubs, so they'll need to shorten the league and find another competition for Bramley etc (obviously NRC would be ideal), although knowing the RFL they'll do the former and not the latter. It does noone any favours though to have 5 effective walkovers in the first 3 weeks, though if they deducted points and awarded the match, and expelled teams for scratching thrice in a season, then teams like Underbank would be less likely to take the , as the current system rewards what they did. Of course the real ideal situation would be to find better run teams to replace the poorly run teams, but that will be difficult as the current league has a poor reputation among both good NCL/BARLA clubs and RLC Premier sides, whihc is a shame as there's a lot of well run clubs as well, so it would have to be an en masse change to a championship 2 or something, but not sure how that could work. Not likely now but with the NCL running summer pilots, it is likely that some strong clubs will want a decent summer league at some point in the future

I wouldn't let the RFL run a bath.



However BARLA wouldn't have a clue where the bath was in the first place.

Yeah perhaps I should have said improved confidence. I think the jury is still out on Wood but Lewis I think has been good for our game.

And why would BARLA want to do that?

They can be such idiots.

Aren't BARLA GB playing Samoa on Monday?